The "Me" Economy & How to Change It

Have a Very Nice Day

A more ​“per­son­al” blog today* One of my favorite mod­ern day sto­ry­tellers is a man named Bill Harley. As a kid I remem­ber lis­ten­ing to his tapes over and over again and mem­o­rized many of his sto­ries. He also wrote a lot of songs. The one that came to mind when prepar­ing this post has these lyrics:

Some­times I get so hun­gry There’s a sand­wich that I love to eat It’s made of pick­les and jel­ly, spaghet­ti, and dough­nuts I tell you it’s a real­ly good treat But when I eat it some­time that day Some­one will come up to me to say Oh Gross, what is the mat­ter with you? You know you eat the weird­est foods I say Thanky­ou kind­ly have a very nice day I just like to be that way

We all have weird habits don’t we? We also have opin­ions about sports, pol­i­tics, par­ent­ing, food, reli­gion and so on. I’m sur­prised at how easy it is to be crit­i­cal of oth­ers. It is easy to say or express to an employ­ee, a ven­dor, sales­per­son or a cashier the words, ​“What is the mat­ter with you?” In oth­er words, we are basi­cal­ly say­ing, ​“You are stu­pid!” As a busi­ness own­er, I’ve thought and expressed my dis­ap­point­ment to peo­ple who are not me many a times. I want what I want! I am a tough guy to please! I want the best ser­vice, the best food, less typos in a post, the fastest email response: basi­cal­ly no mis­takes or I’m not hap­py. Why? Because I’m part of the Me Econ­o­my.

The Me Economy

What I’m call­ing the ​“Me Econ­o­my” is noth­ing new real­ly. It has been around since the begin­ning of time. Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, peo­ple are more con­cerned about them­selves first and then oth­ers. Jesus knew the prob­lem of mankind well when He told His lis­ten­ers these words in Matthew 7:12 ESV, ​“So what­ev­er you wish that oth­ers would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” From that verse came what is known today as the ​“Gold­en Rule.” Jesus was say­ing that it is nat­ur­al to take care of our own needs, wants and desires. He want­ed His fol­low­ers to do some­thing that was unheard of: love others…even your ene­mies (i.e. unrea­son­able cus­tomers). Even though it has always been a prob­lem, it has got­ten worse in the world since the rise of quick com­mu­ni­ca­tions and tech­nol­o­gy upgrades. My dad often miss­es the times when he used to be on the job paint­ing and get a page to call some­one back. This was not all that long ago. He would get to a good stop­ping point, put down his equip­ment and ask the own­er of the home if he could use his or her tele­phone. It was not con­sid­ered rude to ask to do such a thing. In just 20 to 25 years, we would not even think about ask­ing a cus­tomer to use his phone. Many of us would stop what we are doing to pick up the phone or return a text mes­sage in sec­onds, not 15 min­utes or an hour lat­er. Why? Because we are liv­ing in a hyper ​“Me Econ­o­my.” We want instant answers and ser­vice. We have lit­er­al­ly no tol­er­ance or patience to wait! Tech­nol­o­gy has its place in busi­ness, but I’ve expe­ri­enced some of the prob­lems with it too. It is always read­i­ly avail­able. Many times I’ve found myself using my device to admin­is­ter more of ​“me-ness” instead of what it is real­ly meant to be used for: orga­niz­ing my life and serv­ing my cus­tomers.

How to Make a Difference

As I have men­tioned above, I’ve been one of the top con­trib­u­tors of the Me Econ­o­my, and I want to do some­thing about it. One of the ways I plan on mak­ing a dif­fer­ence is by how I com­mu­ni­cate with peo­ple that pro­vide a ser­vice to me. The next time I’m at a restau­rant and the serv­er screws up my order…or the food isn’t just what I had in mind, I’m not going to make a big deal about it or write some nasty, 1 star review. When I’m at Home Depot, Wal­mart or Best Buy, I’ll make a point to say thanks to the cashier or sales­per­son for help­ing me out instead of cri­tiquing their every action on how they treat me.

Your Take­aways

How do you treat your ven­dors, sales­peo­ple, employ­ees and so on? Bet­ter yet, how do you respond when a cus­tomer crit­i­cizes your com­pa­ny? Do you take it per­son­al­ly and vow to get even? Or do you say, as Bill Harley said, ​“Thanky­ou kind­ly, have a very nice day!” Then go and make that cus­tomer’s day! How can you attack the me econ­o­my today in your per­son­al or busi­ness life? Let’s pur­pose to slow life down just a lit­tle and enjoy this sea­son of life.  *This blog post was inspired after lis­ten­ing to a 2 – 3 minute devo­tion­al before a game of bas­ket­ball this week. 2x a week I get togeth­er with some local guys, many who are Chris­t­ian men and women. One of the old­er guys leads a short devo­tion­al and prayer time before we hit the court.